Something like 16 years later?… and still doing “cross your path” references. The House of Ideas. Now we begin an unfortunate thing that happens more than once with Spider-Man, where Mike Weiringo leaves a Spider-Man title, but keeps doing the covers, so the interiors can be disappointing. This issue has 2 line art teams, half of it by Roberto Flores & Juan Viasco, the other half by Tom Lyle and Robert Jones. Matt Hicks colors throughout. The first art team makes the inept Todd Nauck fill-in art look positively wonderful as Spider-Man stops a mugging.
Hideous, top to bottom. Look at those insane legs. He looks like he’s made of Silly Putty. How long could Spider-Man have been gone? A week? Two? This is Marvel time, and it was only 2 months. The whole thing would’ve played better if it lasted longer. I wonder if there was a time when it was going to.
Is this guy’s entire wardrobe belts? Why is this happening? Spider-Man wastes another page fighting this random dork before finally webbing him up. He finishes to applause from a crowd, then swings home thinking about how good it is to be back in his regular suit. The next day, Peter & Mj are headed to meet Ben’s old paramore Desiree at The Daily Grind. Peter is nervous after that weird stuff she was talking last time he saw her, but MJ brushes it off. After Buzz at the counter delivers some exposition about drug dealers going missing from The Bugle, they sit down with Desiree.
It’s like someone doing a terrible impression of Ringo’s earliest, worst comics, while mixing in elements of Humberto Ramos, one of my all-time least favorite comic book artists. This is so bad. Can’t wait for Tom Lyle. Well, that Desiree thing didn’t go anywhere. I wonder if that, too, had a longer tail at one point. Well, anyway, that night, Black Cat’s chasing a guy down an alley when some other guys show up.
I mean, Lyle wasn’t the best, and seemingly did this in a hurry to get the book out on time, but I’m so glad he’s here.
Felcia takes that guy down, and then asks Spider-Man if he’s going to hang out up on the roof all night. He’s been watching, and says she didn’t look like she needed help. She explains that she’s looking for this kid in her new job as a detective on behalf of his parents, but the trail’s gone cold. Spidey offers to pitch in. So, the next day, Peter gets some info out of Ben Urich and Felicia does some digging on “Mikey,” and they have a lead to follow.
No idea where this is going. But, later, Spidey & Cat are spying on that Mikey kid, and they swoop in. Him and his friends scatter, 2 of them pulling guns on Spider-Man as Black Cat takes a surprisingly long time to catch up to Mikey. He starts yelling that her runaway, Dougie, was taken by “the truck,” and then our hero’s danger sense goes off as he sees something familiar…
I cannot believe this garbage truck gag is still working for Arcade. Cannot believe it. In the letters, someone is told Mike Weiringo isn’t going anywhere, he just took a break, but they’re saying that in an issue with a fill-in artist, and as it happens, Mike only draws one of this series’ remaining 4 issues.